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ATTORNEY FOR PLAINTIFFS Lance Wittry Wittry Law Office Indianapolis, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANTS Barbara Bechtel, Nurse-Midwife, and Expectations Women's Health and Childbearing Center Edward L. Murphy, Jr. Heidi K. Koeneman Murphy Ice & Koeneman LLP Fort Wayne, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANT St. Vincent Randolph Hospital Robert G. Zeigler Bobby J. Avery-Seagrave Zeigler Cohen & Koch Indianapolis, Indiana

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Indiana Supreme Court
_________________________________ No. 49S05-1012-CV-703 STEVEN SPANGLER AND HEIDI BROWN, v.

In the

FILED
Dec 13 2011, 10:46 am
of the supreme court, court of appeals and tax court

CLERK

Appellants (Plaintiffs below),

BARBARA BECHTEL, EXPECTATIONS WOMEN'S HEALTH AND CHILDBEARING CENTER, AND ST. VINCENT RANDOLPH HOSPITAL, Appellees (Defendants below). _________________________________ Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, No. 49D03-0306-CT-1120 The Honorable Patrick McCarty, Judge _________________________________ On Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A05-0908-CV-482 _________________________________ December 13, 2011 Dickson, Justice.

Following the death of their full-term baby daughter in utero during labor, just before childbirth, the plaintiffs Steven Spangler and Heidi Brown brought this action seeking damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress. In the ensuing litigation, the trial court granted summary judgment to St. Vincent Randolph Hospital, to Barbara Bechtel (the nurse-midwife who provided pre-natal care during the mother's pregnancy and managed her labor at the hospi-

tal), and to Expectations Women's Health and Childbearing Center ("the Center") (alleged by the plaintiffs to be Bechtel's employer). The Court of Appeals reversed as to all three defendants. Spangler v. Bechtel, 931 N.E.2d 387 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010). We granted transfer and now hold that the parents' separate actions seeking damages for emotional distress from experiencing the stillbirth of their child are not barred by the Indiana Child Wrongful Death Act or the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act.

The underlying facts of the case are not in dispute and are provided in detail by the Court of Appeals. Id. at 389

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